Music notes: Who can resist Weedeater?

The name first popped onto my radar in an announcement for some metal festival years ago. Amid the endless string of names suggesting death, destruction, the occult and combinations thereof, one stood out.

Weedeater.

Now THAT’S a scary band name, I thought. Every time I approach my weedeater, I first poke it with a sharp stick to try to establish who’s boss. Never works. Every time I use the damn thing while wearing shorts, I come back in the house looking like I went wading in the piranha pool. My legs are covered with scratches and red welts from flying crap kicked up by the evil tool. I’ve been tempted to look for my kids’ old soccer shinguards on more than one occasion.

Imagine my disappointment then, when I learned this week during research for the band’s Saturday gig at The Korova that the name has nothing to do with garden tools. It’s, of course, a marijuana reference. I should have known.

My disappointment, however, was tempered by the band’s music, which I finally got around to listening to this week. Sludgier than a wastewater treatment plant, the North Carolina trio’s sound suggests a hybrid of doomy, early Black Sabbath and Kyuss, a defunct California stoner-rock outfit that was one of the first of many stops for Josh Homme, who now leads Them Crooked Vultures, Queens of the Stone Age and Eagles of Death Metal. Lots of folks used “bongwater” in their descriptions, which fits.

Weedeater, in our area for SXSW, in on a three-band bill at the Korova with two other interesting metal bands — Zoroaster, described in a press releases as “Atlanta’s loudest band”; and Kvelertak, a Norwegian band that sings in Norwegian, unlike its Scandinavian metal brethren.

All three are playing various SXSW showcases and parties today and Friday, but metal connoisseurs can save themselves a trip to Austin and having to compete with the music-industry hordes by seeing them together in one place as part of San Antonio’s SXSW spillover effect.

More on the bands:

Weedeater: Judging from their updated bio, these guys are lucky to be upright, much less touring in support of their fourth CD, “Jason … the Dragon,” which came out Tuesday. According to their bio on sxsw.com, all three members have been injured recently. Bassist/vocalist Dave “Dixie” Collins blew off a piece of his foot with a shotgun and had a mishap in a bizarre Halloween costume.

Anyway, I love the description of their sound as “caustic, chest-collapsing, resin-coated ultrasludge.” And did I hear a banjo on one of the tunes I sampled on their Myspace page?

Zoroaster: A press release includes this tout: “Zoroaster weaves Moog, theremin, brass and hella more psychedelia into their doom. I can’t stop listening.” — Pitchfork magazine

Maybe I didn’t listen to enough tracks, but I sure didn’t hear any Moog (the original synth), theremin (the weird thingy that makes those sci-fi noises) or brass. What I heard was dark, spooky metal, more atmospheric and prog-rock than Weedeater. The same release called the sound a “heady mix of mammoth metal and psychotropic shoegaze.” Uh, OK.

Kvelertak: Most Scandinavian metal bands learn to sing in English; one Swedish rocker once explained that this is mainly because rock ‘n’ roll sounds terrible in Swedish.

But when it comes to metal, who cares if Kvelertak is singing in Norwegian? Who can tell, anyway? I sure couldn’t. But I couldn’t make out the words to Weedeater and Zoroaster, either.

Kerrang magazine’s Simon Young labeled Kvelertak “the best Norwegian band since A-Ha.” Remember the “Take on Me” guys and their comic-book- inspired video? Hey Simon: If you don’t have anything nice to say, just don’t say anything.